One of the grievances of the so-called GamerGate movement last August was an article by Dan Golding titled “The End of Gamers” (August 28, 2014). The title referred, not to the literal extinction of gamers as individuals, but of the “gamer” cultural identity as it had previously existed. Golding argued that the previously dominant gamer demographic of white, middle-class males in their teens and twenties, who played games designed for the desktop, was a dying breed. They would cease to define the gamer demographic, and the industry would evolve to reflect the needs of a larger, more diverse market including women, people of color and players using consoles or mobile devices — in other words, the demographics dismissed as “fake geeks” by “real” white male hardcore gamers. The latter demographic, whether sincerely or disingenuously, denounced the article as a literal threat by the dreaded “Social Justice Warriors” to physically eliminate them.

I write, in similar vein, to predict the end of libertarians.

Libertarianism is frequently perceived by the general public, not entirely without justice, as a movement of mostly white male 20- or 30-somethings, disproportionately from the tech industry or other white collar jobs, who see themselves as victims and everyone unlike themselves — women, LGBT people, people of color — as naturally collectivist barbarians.

David Weigel, in his coverage of the recent International Students for Liberty Conference (ISFLC) (“Bow Ties and Slam Poetry: This is Libertarianism in 2015,” Bloomberg Politics, Feb. 17), provides a cringe-inducing example of this. He quotes Rebecca, an Appalachian State University student:

Last night we’re at a party and there’s a guy in a $3,000 suit talking about how oppression is him being taxed on his condo. Well, I have a scar on my head from where a couple of rednecks hit me with a bottle, yelling “queer” at me as they sped by on a truck. I started to argue, and he started telling me go get a job. I had enough of that, and I just got up and left. He said after me: “I hope we get a Republican president so he gets rid of all these social welfare programs.”

No doubt he hopes for a Republican president who can provide more corporate welfare programs for white guys in $3,000 suits instead.

That aside, I find the guy especially annoying based on my own recent experiences. Twice in the same day I had to block clueless white libertarian dudebros on Twitter for replying to my retweets of black people discussing actual chattel slavery, hijacking the conversation uninvited to make comparisons to taxation. Seriously. I mean the people I retweeted were talking about actual forced labor in the fields, with corporal punishment, rape, and families broken up on the auction block, and libertarians felt compelled to jump in with comments like “Hey, I feel ya every April 15, bro!” Two unrelated people, in the same day. And I blocked them because, even after I asked them to stop several times and told them how tone-deaf and counter-productive it was, they insisted on continuing to ‘splain why it was OK.

And please note, I write this as someone who considers taxation a form of surplus labor extraction. It’s one of a wide spectrum of techniques for surplus labor extraction by the privileged classes that control the state, alongside feudal dues, monopoly returns like land rent, profit and usury, oligopoly markups on goods sold by industrial cartels, price gouging by state-licensed professionals — and, yes, actual chattel slavery. Chattel slavery is by far the most severe and exploitative means, among many, of extracting surplus labor by force. Some people find it rhetorically useful to compare all the different forms to slavery by way of analogy; and in some cases it may actually be a useful analogy. But when you’re talking to a person whose ancestors experienced actual, non-metaphoric slavery, it’s not useful; it’s incredibly insensitive and offensive. While we’re at it, comparisons to the Holocaust or to rape are also something you’d better think twice about if you’re getting the bright idea of making them. And if you insist on continuing to dig, and arguing with the descendants of actual slaves about why the slavery comparison is perfectly legitimate, you really just need to SHUT UP.

But my immediate reason for writing this article is another event at ISFLC, and the response to it. Three SFL members, including Mackenzie Holst, Aaron Baca and C4SS comrade Cory Massimino, composed an open letter to Ron Paul taking him to task for his ties to the paleoconservative and paleolibertarian movements, and his tolerance for their racism, sexism and homophobia. Holst read the letter aloud during Paul’s Q&A period. Here are some especially noteworthy passages:

We believe many of the people you have aligned yourself with and continue to align yourself with are libertarians only in name and their true ideology is one more akin to a bigoted and authoritarian paleo-conservatism….

“Millennial” or “Second-wave” libertarianism is not going away and there seems to be irreconcilable differences between these new libertarians and the old guard, which includes figures such as Lew Rockwell, Hans Herman-Hoppe, Walter Block, Gary North, and yourself. In this letter, we would like to highlight the downright absurdity promoted by this obsolete style of thinking, as delineated in the racist, homophobic, and sexist undertones present in these thinkers’ writings….

At the Mises Circle, Lew Rockwell, founder and chairman of the Mises Institute, compared the life of people under modern nation states to literal chattel slavery. We admit the state is a gang of thieves writ large. But this analogy is downright offensive to people have suffered actual chattel slavery as well as people who have relatively great living standards under modern states. Libertarians can expose the evils of statism without resorting to bad metaphors with blatantly obvious racist undertones.

Hans Herman-Hoppe, distinguished fellow of the Mises Institute, wrote just last year that, “it is societies dominated by white heterosexual males, and in particular by the most successful among them, which have produced and accumulated the greatest amount of capital goods and achieved the highest average living standards.” Hoppe has also advocated violence against homosexuals and other people who live lifestyles he doesn’t approve of, “There can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They — the advocates of alternative, non-family-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism — will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order.”…

Walter Block, senior fellow at the Mises Institute, has argued, “Feminists and gays aren’t libertarians.” Also on the topic of homosexuals, Block has written, “If a seventeen year old is an adult, and voluntarily wants to have sex with an adult homosexual man, I may not like it. I may be revolted by it.” If that wasn’t clear enough, Block has made his bigoted views explicit, “I am a cultural conservative. This means that I abhor homosexuality, bestiality, and sadomasochism, as well as pimping, prostituting, drugging, and other such degenerate behavior.” In addition, he has put forth the idea that “lower black IQs” could explain productivity differences between blacks and whites. Again, the arguments speak for themselves.

Gary North, an associated scholar at the Mises Institute, is an outspoken Christian Reconstructionist and supporter of biblical theocracy. North advocates capital punishment by means of stoning for women who lie about their virginity, blasphemers, nonbelievers, children who curse their parents, male homosexuals, and other people who commit acts deemed capital offense in the Old Testament. These views are certainly not representative of the libertarianism we’ve come to know and love.

Stop and think about this for a minute: These are people who actually call themselves libertarians — advocates of human liberty — and who presumably want to spread these ideas in society at large and attract new adherents to them. Hoppe’s prerequisite for a “libertarian society,” if you want to call it that, is for the minority of rich property-owning paterfamiliases who have appropriated all the land in a society to round up all the people with beliefs or lifestyles they disagree with, and forcibly evict them. North would add stoning to the list of sanctions. “We can only have a totally free society after I’ve expelled all the people who do things I disapprove of!”

They don’t favor liberty because it promotes the widest possible flourishing and self-actualization of human beings. They favor it because it gives local patriarchs and lords of manors a free hand to dominate those under their thumbs, without a nasty state stepping in to interfere. For them, “libertarianism” — a term they pollute every time they utter it with their tongues — is simply a way of constructing the world of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale by contractual means. And Block, who shares beliefs with Men’s Rights Advocate creepos and “Race Realists,” is apparently ready to pack up his bags and leave libertarianism for the neo-reactionary movement at a moment’s notice.

And this leaves out other prominent “libertarians” outside Paul’s personal circle, like Stefan Molyneux — a one-man travelling side-show of awfulness.

Beyond the immediate booing in the audience, the reading of the letter sparked a backlash in the larger libertarian movement.

And the backlash extended beyond denunciations by major figures in the libertarian movement. Cory Massimino experienced considerable harassment online, but Holst took a disproportionate amount of harassment, to the point of shutting her Twitter account down. As is usual when a woman falls afoul of wannabe Dale Gribbles, they immediately took to trolling her on social media. Maybe they were GamerGaters who wandered into the wrong convention by mistake and thought she was Anita Sarkeesian.

I’m not just drawing the GamerGate parallel for rhetorical purposes. I really see a lot of parallels, in terms of demographics and attitude towards the outside world, between GamerGaters and the people most outraged by the letter to Ron Paul (especially those trolling Holst in packs). GamerGaters like to think of themselves as victims, and the gaming subculture as their final retreat from a hostile world of Alpha males and “hypergamous” (that is only marrying socially and financially superior men) women. Feminism is just the final insult in a rigged game to make sure Beta males like them never win. So when feminist cultural critics like Zoe Quinn and Anita Sarkeesian point to sexist or misogynistic tropes in video games, or note that the market includes people besides white male desktop players, a large segment of gamers see it as the contamination of their all-boys treehouse by girl cooties. “Muh vidya games! SJWs done roont muh precious vidya games!”

A certain kind of libertarian, disproportionately represented in the mainstream of the movement, takes a similar view of women, queers and people of color who invade their stronghold and try to put social justice concerns on the table. These people are used to seeing libertarianism as the final refuge for rational white middle-class males like themselves, where they can hide in the catacombs and read “Isaiah’s Job” to each other while the outside world goes mad under the onslaught of statist racial minorities and welfare moms demanding handouts from the government. And here a girl has the nerve to show up in the clubhouse and suggest that issues like racism, sexism and homophobia (or anything else besides Bitcoin, vaping, Uber and the capital gains tax) should be taken seriously by libertarians.

In both cases, the reaction is one of outrage — taking the form of trolling, abuse, insults and threats — at the affront to their sense of entitlement.

A libertarian movement with this demographic as its core base is doomed to extinction. The reason is that these people, for the most part, aren’t interested in winning hearts and minds among the general public. They’re not interested in recognizing the concerns of poor and working people, women, LGBT people or people of color as legitimate, and showing ways that an ideology of human freedom can address those concerns in a meaningful way. They’re interested in being superior, in being the last tiny remnant of rational people who’ve not bowed their knees to the collectivist Baal.

They’re interested in convincing themselves that, contrary to common sense perceptions, white guys in $3,000 suits, investment bankers and venture capitalists are the state’s true victims, and the enormously powerful constituency of black welfare mothers are its main beneficiaries.

Frankly, I’m sick of libertarian outreach being sabotaged by the need to apologize for people like this. I’m sick of trying to challenge the perception of libertarianism as the movement of entitled 20-something middle-class white males who think “big business is the last oppressed minority,” and the world is going to hell in a hand-basket because of women and racial minorities — and then going to Mises.org, Lew Rockwell, Cato and Reason and seeing a bottomless cesspool of people saying that very thing.

The version of libertarianism preached by these people is dying, because it’s the ideology of a dying (and rightfully so) demographic. Whether we let them take the entire movement down with them, or whether we make ourselves relevant to a larger world of people outside a tiny privileged group, is up to us. I close with a quote from Leigh Alexander (“‘Gamers’ don’t have to be your audience. ‘Gamers’ are over,” Gamasutra, August 28, 2014):

These obtuse shitslingers, these wailing hyper-consumers, these childish internet-arguers — they are not my audience. They don’t have to be yours. There is no ‘side’ to be on, there is no ‘debate’ to be had.

There is what’s past and there is what’s now. There is the role you choose to play in what’s ahead.

91 comments

A libertarian is somebody who believes in and practices the Zero Aggression Principle. Period. This includes a wide variety of lifestyles. It excludes those who believe in any form of government that robs Peter to pay Paul.

I'm just surprised an authoritarian whose dream is to cleanse society of everybody who does things they disapprove of would choose libertarianism in the first place. You'd think most people who gravitate towards libertarianism would do so because they *value* human dignity, not as a way of expressing their *hatred* for it.

As the author of the piece suggests, there are those who either want State power out of the way so that their own use of power will be unopposed, or who want to declare that the minimal set of functions that libertarians (in the American sense of the word) believe are proper to the State include (e. g.) the stoning of blasphemers, the furtherance of patriachy by criminal sanction, and so on.

And with these few words, you have explained why "libertarianism" is a utopian ideology that has no practical application in human society.

Look to the biological world, of which we will always remain a part. There is no "non-aggression principle" there. There are, however mutually-advantageous communities in which provisionally defined forms of "aggression" are sanctioned. But it's the group that writes the code, there is no sovereign individual.

That's not the only definition. There are a huge range of definitions of a libertarian based on what sort of philosophical school you subscribe to. It's certainly a common and relatively descriptive definition, but to say it's the only definition ignores hundreds of years of philosophy which was externally and self described as libertarian.

Some valid points about the "vulgarity" of corporate libertarianism. But to expect conformity on social issues appears as puritanical as the bigots you criticize. Simply focus on non-aggression, and virtue will eventually find its market value.

So what to do if you're the type that is tired of both capitalist apologia and special snowflake-ism within libertarianism? Hang out with one side until they annoy you enough then go hang out with the other, then rinse and repeat?

HOOO HOO. "look at me, I don't know what Libertarianism ACTUALLY IS Kevin Carson.".As somebody whose ancestors not only faced chattel slavery, but ALSO faced near extermination by the hands of the state. Do me a favor and SHUT UP with your downing of the comparisons between chattel slavery and taxation analogy. 2. Libertarian Philosophy does NOT put down bigotry PER Libertarianism. If YOU are anti-bigotry then that's fine, and I would say good. But to equate it with Libertarianism makes you absolutely WRONG.

nah, it doesn't. The history of the state is intertwined with bigotry and libertarianism is necessarily suspicious of bigotry. Plus, you can compare yourself to your chattel ancestors all you want, your lot and their lot is a different fucking ballgame. get over yourself.

Unlike the author and the entire retarded left. i'm not full of myself.. I'm sick and tired of leftists yapping baout bigotry (while themselves being bigots I might add) and their belief in thought crimes as libertarianism.

Everyone assumes that the only reason that people can dislike Anita Sarkeesian is because she is a woman when they forget that there she does not work alone and there is another at work for Feminist Frequency: the man behind her, Jonathan McIntosh ("Personally, I believe representative electoral democracy is a farce and a sham.") Stepping outside of video games, you can compare quite a number of sources he has quoted in an attempt to deconstruct societal creations with little result to the exact same quotes appearing under Sarkeesian's name with much greater success.

Instead of letting consumers decide what to buy, they dictate what is 'problematic' and attempt to shut down competition. The question then becomes what are they doing to create alternative options for an entertainment medium? The answer is nothing, as they are critics and not creators. When the only thing you have to sell is outrage, you get real good at marketing it.

The important thing is that the easy path for readers here has already been taken. The (minimal) work required to feel superior over another assumed identity group has already been done. "They don't have to be your audience." You don't need to question it. Look at those disgusting misogynists. I have better moral character than that. I am smarter than them. Only they are capable of such atrocities. Us. Them. Good. Bad. If it was truly a dying demographic, why would there be any need for a group to work specifically to deconstruct it? The only reason I can think of for these kind of philosophical exercises in attempted identity destruction is mental masturbation.

I thought we were all trying to build a coalition here. At least, that's what I'd like. Imagine a coalition where guys in expensive suits in Manhattan find common cause with third world chattel slaves – wow, that's pretty cool! That's historically rather unique. That's the kind of coalition that can threaten existing power structures.

But you're telling them to shut up and not find common cause with chattel slaves? Just to appease your sense of proportion perhaps? I don't get it.

Sure, one is more serious than the other but that doesn't mean that we throw the whole idea of alliance and coalition out the window on the heels of our superior attitudes and ideological purity.

This is something I expect from certain new C4SS people but to hear it from Kevin Carson is disappointing, to say the least.

I had got the impression that the advice to stop speaking as if their taxes were as bad as chattel slavery was advice with an eye toward making that very coalition possible,that such an unuanced comparison must likely turn-off the close descendant of chattel slaves, much more those actually enslaved now.

The comments are also why I tend not to describe myself as libertarian (I might say left-libertarian, more likely anarchist, although the manarchists and some libertarian communists who ignore all but their narrow swathe of the tradition sometimes put me off that too…)

What really amuses me is that the 'libertarians' who cry at this sort of thing (and those who side with the 'gamergaters') are claiming that we are trying to censor them – all that's happening is their premises are being challenged, and successfully I think.

If you read the website, Weezil, you'd see that some libertarian organizations actually cut ties with pieces of shit. Others, like those referenced in Carson's article, refuse to do so no matter what facts they're presented with.

You'll forever have to deal with this problem as long as you see your key foundational ethic as "non-aggression" (the absence of coercion) instead of non-hierarchy (the absence of domination). What has always characterised the broad anarchist tradition is an opposition to all stratifications of power – whether based on politics, class, race, gender, sexuality, disability, etc. – NOT merely an opposition to formal coercion. This, to me, is what separates anarchism proper from voluntaryism and makes them different philosophies.

What defines anarchism in the negative sense is not simply anti-statism, but anti-authoritarianism. ie: Reductions in state power are not necessarily to be welcomed if they end up increasing other kinds of authoritarianism as a result. Forms of non-statist hierarchy and domination existed long before the modern nation-state and are no less detrimental to people's lives. And no, they're not ALL strengthened by statism, some are in fact weakened by it, despite the protestations I've seen by many a bleeding heart libertarian.

I've seen voluntaryists of both the right and the left attempt to justify, or at least tolerate, almost any kind of hierarchical domination under the sun with the oft quoted mantra "as long as it's voluntary". I say, so what? Structural inequalities of bargaining power between ruler and ruled lead people into "consenting" to positions of subordination they otherwise would not partake in if they have an effective (not merely theoretical) choice. It's really not that hard to understand.

Lew Rockwell claimed that being a "libertarian" (by which he meant voluntaryist, as self-professed libertarians of the 19th century would have laughed at his characterisation) meant nothing more than adhering to the "non-aggression principle", and that if you wanted to also include opposition to racism/sexism/queerphobia, call yourself something else. This "something else" exists. It's called anarchism. An-Anarchy. No Rulers. Whether those rulers rule by coercive or "voluntary" authority.

Those who are organising their institutions along consciously anarchist lines; in particular when it comes to federations/confederations of voluntary associations. You allow in and cooperate with those persons and institutions willing to operate on a broadly non-hierarchical basis, and exclude those that don't. If some party joins agreeing to organise horizontally, but then later imposes structures of centralised power and rulership, the rest of the federation/confederation kicks them out. Simple as that.

As for the question of "initiating force", social anarchists don't take this option off the table. Most of us are ethical consequentialists and don't adhere to anything resembling your "self-ownership" or "non-aggression" principles, which are deontological maxims; and of a propertarian variety at that. If there are any guiding principles of action they would instead be autonomy and non-domination. Which are not the same thing.

Given that this wasn't a serious reply, merely a rather pathetic insult that doesn't actually mean anything, there isn't really a reason for me to offer a serious reply. But I will anyway.

Social anarchists are not against all forms of "property" (if you want to use that word). So there's no reason to counter the concept of property to what you call "communism". They have always supported a person's ability to claim personal property over land and items defined by:
(1) Active personal use
(2) Consistent occupancy.
(3) With the provision that someone else isn't already doing so.

This is called the _possession principle_ or "use and occupancy" rule.

So no, anarchists are not against all property. Just property defined by absentee ownership protected by states and state-like entities (private defence agencies).

Everything posted at this site is literally as unlibertarian as humanly possible. Your interpretation of gamergate, your hilarious collectivist views of middle class white males juxtaposed with accusation of the same from the other side of the isle. I guess this will just be dismissed though, because it is so obvious that this middle class white male who disagrees with you (a middle class fat white male) is just a libertarian because I want to be a petty tyrant of some sort.

eat shit kevin. you and this site are a plague. just drop the fucking pretense and join the communists.

I'm a Libertarian, but haven't been active in the party for years. I have met some of those people, though.
I'm not at all surprised by the comments by Hoppe; he also doesn't like immigration, in spite of being an immigrant, and has taken enough other non-libertarian positions that I don't understand why he'd hang out with us (though I'm not surprised he's hanging out with Rockwell, who was always really more of a conservative.)

But I'm surprised about your quote from Bloch – it feels very much like the first half of one of his usual "Defending the Undefendable" rants, where he may start out by saying "I don't like _X_ (look, I'm personally conservative, and think _X_ is *icky*), but people who like _X_ have every right to do it if they feel like it, and here are six reasons why."

This article itself is in a collectivist thinking mode. We are all individuals and don't just conform to the groups represented. Many of the quotes are taken out of context. Is there a problem with some white male, young, tax focused libertarians? Sure. But a few confused souls doesn't a collectivist phobic movement make. One could say the same thing about some bleeding heart libertarians. We all come from different backgrounds with different focus points, different approaches, and different modes of reasoning. Viva la difference. That is what makes us libertarians. What I am sick of is the constant focus of some libertarians to waste all their energy denouncing other libertarians.

I think it is time to you make a decision: do you prefer to be aside with Voluntaryist/ Propertarians/ Capitalist Libertarians or Anarchist? There is no way to embrace God and devil at the same time. It's completely useless for an self-stated anarchist to denounce "the dirty things in libertarian movement". Because if you see yourself as "libertarian" instead of anarchist you always will see these type of things and you will be directly or indirectly involved. So why do you care for something that has nothing to do with anarchist movement?

Being aside with "liberty movement" involves many things that an anarchist doesn't approve. As connorowens99 said, voluntaryism is not anarchism and the results of both are completely distinct. Is your key foundational ethic the absence of coercion or domination? Because anarchism involve much more than coercion. And to choose the Voluntaryist ethic is to know that racism, homophobia, misogyny and other types of dominance without aggression could perfectly exist in a voluntaryist community. They know about that and the most libertarians don't care. But this things never could exist in an anarchist community.

For example, Bob Black or David Graeber care about the "liberty movement"? Are they worried about what libertarians say? They don't f*** care. They don't even have links with libertarians. They are ANARCHISTS, they are concerned about the anarchist scene and not to libertarian audience. They have nothing to do with them. So if you see yourself as an anarchist (and logically not as an voluntaryist/ libertarian), why are you closer of these people?

I really like your works (I am one of the translators of the SMPE for Portuguese speakers) but in my opinion it is a waste of time you to be connected with propertarians/ voluntaryists/ libertarians groups once your claims is much closer with groups/ audience like Infoshop, Libcom, AK Press, etc.

My "choice" is to continue making use of whatever ideas I find useful from a variety of sources, and to cooperate with those with whom I find it useful to do so on specific matters — as I have always done. I don't deal well with ultimatums or attempts to restrict my associations for me.

I can appreciate your attempt to try to adopt a pragmatist "whatever works" approach to ideas and action. And yes, its a very good thing to take good ideas and incorporate them, no matter where they come from. People of all political persuasions tend to have a problem with accepting that an ideology they are opposed to may have come up with a good concept, instead having a kind of "Ugh! That can't be worth taking on board, one of THEM came up with it". This includes social anarchist circles and they'd benefit greatly from getting rid of this mindset.

But they problem is, this idea you seem to have that there can be some kind of "pan-libertarian" movement with social anarchists on the left and anarcho-capitalists on the right – with market anarchists like yourself in the middle – is never going to happen. For two reasons:

(1) SocAns and AnCaps will never agree to work together on anything involving constructive actions, instead of just opposition to things they mutually oppose. The former because they find capitalism abhorrent, the latter because they choose to remain completely ignorant of what social anarchists even believe, dismissing any notion that sounds even vaguely leftist as "collectivism" without ever reading a single book on social anarchist theory.

(2) While social anarchists may be on board with different localities and regions practicing different economic systems, they want all of them to exist in the context of a _free commons_ organised through the confederation of autonomous communities. This doesn't rule out markets (plural) existing as long as they were subject to directly-democratic community controls. It does however preclude the idea of a universalising free market (singular) economy operating on the profit-motive and growth imperative that subsumes all institutions within it.

Long term, it's either going to be: commons subordinate to a market-based economy; or markets subordinate to a commons-based economy.

This is why I would agree to an extent with @VDigo that (not just you) market anarchists of the Proudhon/Tucker variety should carefully weigh their priorities and decide whether to align long-term with either social anarchists or voluntaryists.

The only thing that I don't agree, but not only with you but with the almost all American individualists, is when someone puts Tucker as the same thing as Proudhon. I see Proudhon as a Social Anarchist and very similar with Bakunin or Kropotkin in political science and not with the American Individualist Anarchism. Tucker is basically a radical Ricardian Socialist. It's like you said, Tuckerites would aprove communities subordinate to a market-based economy, but I don't see this happening in a Proudhonian federalist community. Proudhon was not a "market anarchist".

Proudhon HIMSELF was not a market anarchist, no. But the way mutualism as an economic theory was developed since him (including by Kevin Carson) means that modern mutualism now has much more in common with Tuckerian individualism than with social anarchism.

Proudhon's ideas, as originally formulated, actually had more in common with the collectivist anarchism of Mikhail Bakunin and James Guillaume than with the American market anarchists. He wanted markets, yes, but within the context of a communal confederation and subject to democratic social controls. He probably would have found the idea of a universalising free market economy appalling.

But this kind of mutualism doesn't really exist anymore, having been developed into collectivist anarchism within the First International and in another direction in America by Benjamin Tucker and his Liberty circle.

Yes, I agree with you. In my opinion, this modern mutualism (I prefer to say "American mutualism"), which is a evolution from Tucker's free market socialism, is naive when it is studied not just as a economic theory, but as a foundation fora society and very problematic for many reasons. Because this mutualism is very based in economic theories and the most their supporters has a little (or nothing) comprehension in political thinking.

So I don't think this American mutualism is a good thinking when the other social knowledges and institutions are neglected. Seeing "all human interaction as part of market process" is really appaling and this homo economicus view remembers me how libertarians/propertarians/"anarcho"-capitalists see the world. And this is not good.

I guess it depends on how you view market processes – if its exchange for money (or barter) then I'd agree, but markets for me are the emergent properties of human interaction on a large scale.
Its a useful tool to look at the large scale, but dangerous at the scale of individuals, and the assumptions made with the ideas of homo economicus are horrendous and inaccurate – humans are wonderfully and 'irrational'.

I might look at a commune as a whole as a market, not mediated by money, but by social ties, agreements and reputation, the specifics might be in part explained by looking at that to show the dynamics, but there are also other tools to use (the psychology of those involved, history and more).

I often think that there's a lot more in commin with social anarchists and market anarchists than admitted – we are all against an rulers and hierarchy and dogma (well, we should be 😉 )

(disclaimer – I've travelled from a white middle class libertarian to a varient of mutualist anarchism thanks to the work of people like Kevin and Shawn Wilbur, and then the work of social and class war anarchists – all along the way I've developed more and more appreciation of the nuance and lack of certainties in life)/.

I don't think it's at all accurate to think of "markets" as the emergent properties of human behaviour. Especially when applying the term to human relations which involve no money, buying, or selling. If you wanted to stick a modern economic label on these, commons would be the far more accurate term to use.

As David Graeber so well explained in Debt: The First 5000 Years, contra Hayek, there was nothing spontaneous about the emergence of markets. Most of them were first created by early states and kingdoms as a means of de-cluttering bureaucratic administration. Far from being the inversion of statism, it's hard to find a market-based society where the market elements originally introduced by state authorities.

This is especially true when you look at the creation of the modern national and later international market economy, where the old commons were enclosed and the myriad of local market (subject to social controls and embedded within a wider social context) were "nationalised" by European states and then subsequently internationaled and expanded via imperialism.

Keep in mind that this does not mean that markets in the plural (as opposed to the market ''economy'' – singular) are a bad thing. But the historical and anthropological evidence runs contrary to the idea that they are the most natural forms of human behaviour.

If we see the lessons left by old classical liberals, they always claimed that a heathy society needs institutions to maintain what they wanted. And this is true when we see the prospects in anarchist political theory. Supporting institutions based in democratic society, direct control by people, non-If we see the lessons left by old classical liberals, they always claimed that a healthy society needs institutions to maintain what they wanted. And this is true when we see the prospects in anarchist political theories to support institutions based in democratic society, direct control by people, non-hierarchical governance,etc to hold liberty, equality and solidarity. A healthy society needs strong institutions to maintain itself alive and what sort of institutions Tuckerists/ market anarchists have to offer besides "muh, free market"? Almost (or literally) nothing.

If we look at the past and we see that markets are much closer with exploratory societies than egalitarian societies (so Iagree with connorowens99 and Graeber, of couse) and I think that a prudent choice is not to adopt a system where has no guarantees. I don't say to abandon markets at all, but embracing the so called market-based egalitarian society makes no sense. I wouldn't like to live in a society based on propertarians/ "anarcho"-capitalists/ "libertarian" Rothbardian society populated with pro-hierarchical, authoritarian, capitalist, racist/ misogyny/etc relations and with poor people excluded of their claims as a whole.

Kevin work is really brilliant, but sometimes i don't understand his shifts with libertarians…

Our individualist anarchist tradition is enough to understand the post-modern world slavery, even in economics. Why citing so many times people (like Hayek or Rothbard) that sees individual freedom exclusively in the sense of economics and markets. Libertarians don't really understand individual freedom, because their perception of what an individual is narrow minded and distorted by their reification of the homo economicus. When Tucker embraced egoism and gave up natural rights he removed himself from what we today call libertarianism.

It's funny that Bob Black is seen by the most libertarians as a communist, nevertheless he is one of the main critics of leftism, and common left minded "sacred cows". like direct democracy…

Like i said before, your works are really inspiring, and i wish to see them translated into portuguese! But i think you waste a lot of time with libertarians…

"The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals..

No principle, that is possible to be named, can be more self-evidently false than this; or more self-evidently fatal to all political freedom. Yet it triumphed in the field, and is now assumed to be established. If it really be established, the number of slaves, instead of having been diminished by the war, has been greatly increased; for a man, thus subjected to a government that he does not want, is a slave. And there is no difference, in principle — but only in degree — between political and chattel slavery. The former, no less than the latter, denies a man's ownership of himself and the products of his labor; and [*iv] asserts that other men may own him, and dispose of him and his property, for their uses, and at their pleasure."

All this insensitive bigotry must have started with that neckbearded Spooner trying to stop Negroes from playing in his treehouse.

It's about what I expected from the Gribbletarians. I'm especially amused by the outrage over my Patreon — if that's not evidence of GamerGate crossover I don't know what is. They have no objection whatsoever to people being paid to write by libertarian establishment organizations — just indie writers and readers hooking up directly. And oddly enough, these are mostly the same people who celebrate Uber for cutting out the middleman.

As I said in the article, I don't rule out that "slavery" may be useful in some cases as an analogy for all forms of surplus labor extraction. "Wage slavery" has been in wide use for a long term. What I wouldn't do is jump into someone else's conversation about actual chattel slavery (particularly that of their ancestors) and say "Hah, I feel ya every time I punch a time clock" or make any similar tone-deaf comparison to their experience and mine.

As a supporter of Gamer Gate I really resent this comparison. As a gamer and a leftist, and a mens rights supporter, I think you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about when it comes to either of these. Neither Gamer Gate or Mens Rights are some reactionary movement, this is simply a lie that has been framed by feminists and spread through the mainstream media. Please actually check facts before you go spouting this kind of stuff. I support your political views but these comparisons were awful and insulting.

GamerGate began with a misogynist witch hunt based on a conspiracy theory against Zoe Quinn, and spends most of its time attacking people who aren't even professional journalists, merely cultural/media commentators who write from a feminist or left-wing perspective (again, based mostly on conspiracies). These are not opinions based on hearsay, these are well-known facts.

Hoppe and Mises and are gauche nobodies. And who cares what assorted people on Twitter say? See Reason for what official libertarianism is all about. Seems to be pushing libertarianism on leftist terms. ("Did you know gun control is actually RACIST, just ask the Black Panthers…" says Reason TV in hopes of being cool.)
My recent post Don’t Make Him Hungry. You Wouldn’t Like Him When He’s Hungry.

While a long blog post could be written documenting the errors and generalizations of Carson's post (and much of his writing in general), I think it's clear at this point that not enough people take him seriously enough for him to do any damage.

It's good to see that anything resembling a Libertarianism+ was dead at the door.

And don't insult Wendy McElroy by putting her in the same category as Sommers. I have my disagreements with her, but that is just nope.

And haha, I see, so you think left-libertarianism is like Atheism+ (Well it is, in a sense). But here's the thing. Equality must go hand in hand with liberty. Liberty without equality is a farce, equality without liberty is impossible.

You kids. Most egalitarians are liberals or socialists, and with good reason. You can't create equality without an institution to protect those on the bad end of human relationships, AKA the oppressed and the victimized. This is paradoxical, of course, because that institution will by definition be made up of people with power and hence will contribute to inequality. The liberals usually deal with this by declaring said power legitimate through democratic elections.

Libertarians, who want to reduce or end the institutional power of the elected government in all areas but violence, say liberty but subscribe to a formula which would allow other powerful institutions like business and religion to reassert themselves, which obviously would make for a less equal world on more classical terms. That's why libertarianism gets right wing support. It's the only reason it gets right wing support. A left libertarian is either an idiot or purposefully holds an ideology that has no practical application whatsoever, possibly to express something about themselves personally. For someone who says that prejudice and discrimination are products of institutionalized power or vice versa, it's both.

It's really, really messy to take a highly differentiated species, knowing that differentiation translates into unequal ability and thus unequal value to others, combine it with action over time which institutionalizes those inequalities, and then try to organize a society predicated on equality. You're going to fail. And you deserve it for the crass, awe-inspiring stupidity this article displays. Your ethics are mainstream democratic humanism, and if you had any sense, you'd know this is the worst insult possible to a political or philosophical thinker.
My recent post The Year for Men

I'd agree that mainstream libertarianism has some serious demographics problems. For one, I'd think that "eco-libertarianism" would be a big section of the movement. I'm thinking that libertarians must be pretty urban or agricultural, because people who live in or near the wilderness and nature know how valuable natural places & resources are. But I usually hear a derision of anything green, as if they were bloody neocons.
On the whole, most libertarians are too closed-minded, and too many are evidently middleclass-oriented to the point of being blinded by capitalism in many ways.

As for Mises.org… I couldn't take them seriously when I first discovered them, and never bothered witht them again. I understand that there could be some socially conservative members, but the likes of Gary North is RIDICULOUS. It bafffles me still how they could be so hypocritical and blind.

The conservative-libertarian conflationism thing is just too widespread.

Personally I don't like ideology or factions of any kind. So I don't label myself libertarian (or anarchist). I prefer "anti-authoritarian," "individualist," "localist," etc etc.

I am stunned by the amount of ignorance and arrogance by someone that I had thought would know better. The fact that you consider taxation as "a form of surplus labor extraction" rather that theft, as Dr. Paul, Dr. North, Rockwell, or Dr. Hoppe would label it is very telling. It seems that they are the true libertarians while the left-libertarians are posers who seem to be intimidated by people with $3,000 suits. There is nothing wrong with being an anarchist because there are many of us out here. But it is a very wide tent and some anarchist tend to be far too collectivist and too authoritarian to truly be anti-state. The simple fact is that without coercion from a state a left-libertarian system could never work.

There's no such thing as a capitalist anarchist. It's a contradiction in terms. Capitalism is both authoritarian and statist by definition and can't be otherwise. It depends on the existence of a state or state-like entity (eg: "private defence agencies") to enforce the claims of the capitalist class over absentee-owned private property that they neither use nor occupy themselves.

Nor is anarchism defined purely by its anti-statism, but rather anti-authoritarianism. A reduction in state power is not necessarily to be welcomed if it ends up increasing other (non-state) forms of authoritarianism as a result. If you want to push for your plutocratic utopia where all the corrupt corporate executives rule the ignorant masses happily from Galt's Gulch and sing kumbaya, go ahead. Just stop calling yourselves anarchists. Doing so is an absolute joke.

There's no such thing as a capitalist anarchist. It's a contradiction in terms. Capitalism is both authoritarian and statist by definition and can't be otherwise. Capitalism is both authoritarian and statist by definition and can't be otherwise.

There is no contradiction. When libertarians or anarcho-capitalists use the word capitalism they only mean that the means of production is privately owned but they are are also talking about this production taking place under free market conditions. They are no more happy with crony capitalism than left-libertarians, many of whom wound up supporting bailouts and deposit insurance schemes under the pretence that it helps protect individuals. Why can't individuals have property rights in an anarchist society? Better yet, how can you have an anarchist society without property rights?

It depends on the existence of a state or state-like entity (eg: "private defence agencies") to enforce the claims of the capitalist class over absentee-owned private property that they neither use nor occupy themselves.

What is wrong with protecting personal property? And why should all private property be in use all the time? Should I be able to take your bicycle because you are not using it right now?

Nor is anarchism defined purely by its anti-statism, but rather anti-authoritarianism.

What does that mean; that people can't protect their property because you consider that authoritarian? An anarchist has no problem with rules but with rulers. I believe it is time that the lefties spent a bit more time thinking about that rather than making empty statements.

A reduction in state power is not necessarily to be welcomed if it ends up increasing other (non-state) forms of authoritarianism as a result.

It is not welcomed by crony capitalists who don't like economic competition or commissars who don't like liberty. But it is fine with individuals who believe in freedom.

If you want to push for your plutocratic utopia where all the corrupt corporate executives rule the ignorant masses happily from Galt's Gulch and sing kumbaya, go ahead. Just stop calling yourselves anarchists. Doing so is an absolute joke.

I wish that you collectivists would rely on something other than straw men arguments. I don't care if you are gay, black, a woman, or a vegetarian because what you are is your business. I simply don't recognize the attempt by left anarchists to enslave people by denying them their right to property. They seem so hung up on people who wear $3,000 suits that they forget that the real goal is individual liberty, not egalitarianism.

The goal IS egalitarianism and always has been. That's what the very term means: An-Archy – without rulership. The absence of rulers inevitably means everyone standing in horizontal relation to each other. Capitalism is antithetical to this. Capitalist class stratifications naturally mean rulership of a wealthy elite over everyone else and power-hierarchies in workplaces instead of self-management.

And by capitalism I mean ALL capitalism, not "crony capitalism", which is a tautological term used as a no-true-Scotsman argument when something unavoidably bad is pointed out that capitalism is responsible for. Your own idiosyncratic definition of the word capitalism is irrelevant. You can't take a word that's been used to mean one thing for 99% of its history and then get upset when people use the more accepted definition (the economic system we have NOW) instead of yours (some unknown ideal yet to be achieved).

As for "property rights", anarchists have always supports these – even if the principle was termed "possession" rather than (or even in opposition to) "property". But only insofar as it is defined by use and occupancy (with the provision that someone else isn't already doing so), not absentee ownership.

The argument you made about the bicycle couldn't be more disingenuous. I don't think even you buy that analogy, as a person's bike is obviously a different things than claiming ownership over a factory, forrest, or tower block; which is the whole point of confining property to personal possession.

Then again, this is a classic refrain, attempting to justify an economic system based on class rule and socisl hierarchies through little thought experiments (which no one could object to) that take class stratifications and social hierarchies completely out of it.

People are born with different capabilities. People have different motivation. That makes the goal of equality unreachable without the use of state force. Having no ruler will not make Mike Tyson less powerful than I am or women equally attracted to me and Tom Cruise. It will not make me as smart as David Gordon or as driven as Warren Buffett.

The absence of rulers inevitably means everyone standing in horizontal relation to each other.

But it will not mean equal outcomes, which is what egalitarianism is about.

Capitalism is antithetical to this. Capitalist class stratifications naturally mean rulership of a wealthy elite over everyone else and power-hierarchies in workplaces instead of self-management.

In a FREE MARKET capitalist system the poor are far more able to improve their lot in life than in any other system. Let the market choose what is used as money and let people be free and they will be better off. But they will NOT be equal.

And by capitalism I mean ALL capitalism, not "crony capitalism", which is a tautological term used as a no-true-Scotsman argument when something unavoidably bad is pointed out that capitalism is responsible for. Your own idiosyncratic definition of the word capitalism is irrelevant. You can't take a word that's been used to mean one thing for 99% of its history and then get upset when people use the more accepted definition (the economic system we have NOW) instead of yours (some unknown ideal yet to be achieved).

The only other alternative then are hampered markets and the use of force. How do you propose to stop people from cooperating and pooling resources to accumulate capital that will generate wealth? If Bill and Tom decide to pool Bill's truck and Tom's tools to open up a successful plumbing business how will you prevent them from earning more than the average citizen and using those earnings to acquire more trucks and more tools that will generate even more income and wealth?

As for "property rights", anarchists have always supports these – even if the principle was termed "possession" rather than (or even in opposition to) "property". But only insofar as it is defined by use and occupancy (with the provision that someone else isn't already doing so), not absentee ownership.

That means that I can take your bike when you are not riding it or your house when you go to work in another city for a while. Not exactly a coherent position, is it? On what logical or moral grounds can you support such nonsensical belief?

The argument you made about the bicycle couldn't be more disingenuous. I don't think even you buy that analogy, as a person's bike is obviously a different things than claiming ownership over a factory, forrest, or tower block; which is the whole point of confining property to personal possession.

Why is it different? A bike that is used to earn a living can be considered capital. You may use that capital yourself or hire someone else to earn money by its use. The principles are exactly the same. I can plant trees that I have no intention of harvesting for decades because they will grow each year. Do you get to take possession of my forest because I have decided to optimize my returns?

I find left-libertarians well meaning but dangerous because they are clueless about simple economics.

Then again, this is a classic refrain, attempting to justify an economic system based on class rule and socisl hierarchies through little thought experiments (which no one could object to) that take class stratifications and social hierarchies completely out of it.

I do not defend class rule. I am an anarchist who respects property rights and does not agree that the state should try to make us all equal. Left libertarians seem to lose focus and ignore the fact that in a free society we are responsible for our own actions. Their simplistic 'solution' via redistribution is shallow and fails to deal with what happens on day two after everything has been redistributed. Since we are not equal and are equally capable of being rewarded for serving our fellow men it is evident that even in a society that has redistributed all capital it would not be long before capable men become much wealthier than the average while the unfocused will become much poorer than the average. What do you do then?

We're clearly using two completely different definitions of egalitarianism. I'm using the term to imply a situation in which decision-making power over the running of social affairs is shared equally, so that some individuals/groups are unable to control others. You are using it to describe an absurd scenario of total sameness of outcomes. It is precisely because people have different capabilities that equality is necessary in any society with pretensions to calling itself free, people cannot be in a position to actualise those capabilities and fulfil themselves if some are permitted to have hierarchical power over them (ie: capitalists and others).

Any socio-economic system which premises itself upon necessary class stratifications is the enemy of individual self-realisation – except for the rich that is. The rest of us have to slum it. Then again, in your imagined future ancap society, you naturally picture yourself as a boss commanding others rather than worker having to take orders from above.

–In a FREE MARKET capitalist system the poor are far more able to improve their lot–

ie: The poor (poverty) will still exist. After all, capitalism requires that some be poor so that the rich can live off their efforts.

–How do you propose to stop people from cooperating and pooling resources–

It's clear that like every other ancap you've never read a single thing that's ever been written by a social anarchist. Are you afraid that if you read so much as an introductory article on social anarchist economic proposals that your eyeballs will burst into flames or something? Because cooperating in the pooling of resources is exactly what social anarchists propose and always have; only on a horizontal (not hierarchical/centralised) basis, organising production, distribution, and investment through participatory decision-making at the community and workplace level – with production-for-use instead of production-for-profit, in the context of a needs-based economy in place of a growth-based economy.

–That means that I can take your bike when you are not riding it or your house when you go to work in another city–

Yet more disingenous straw man arguments I see. Given that the specifics of personal property claims in each locality would be the result of joint agreement by the residents of that locality, I don't see it as very likely that people would agree to a system in which anyone could take anyone else's possessions the moment they walked away from them and would have no means of solidifying which forms of possession were legitimate and which were not.

–Why is it different? A bike that is used to earn a living can be considered capital–

A bike, like almost any form of personal property (defined by use and occupancy) can be defended solely by the person claiming it if someone else attempts to take it from them. The same is not true of a factory of forrest – which can only be claimed (in abstention of use and occupancy) by statism. The principles are the same only in propertarian la-la land.

–I find left-libertarians well meaning but dangerous because they are clueless about simple economics–

Given that capitalism is premised on the absurd imperative of infinite GDP growth on a planet of finite resources, I think you'll find its the other way around. Even a three-year-old child can figure out that if you keep depleting something finite, you destroy it. It takes reams of bourgeois brainwashing to believe otherwise.

What a surprise: a left-wing libertarian writes an article full of contradictions. I used to respect this site, and thought there really was a possiblity of an alliance after all, but eventually the "social justice" rhetoric (number one of the apologia for the existence of the state) they share with statists must always come to the fore, at which point they show just how collectivist they still are, coralling individuals into groups for a political agenda. Perish the thought some of us do not look at people as "women" or "this" or "that" but as unique individuals, and therefore refuse to play the gender/race/gay victimhood game in order to flaggelate ourselves as being "white privileged males".

Someone who continues to regard humanity as a collective cannot ultimately stop himself from thinking of rights in terms of groups, and will ultimately contradict himself if claiming to be a libertarian.
In freedom, people will think, feel and speak about others as they please, and only anti-libertarian mentalities can stop that. You ARE NOT GOING TO STOP JUDGEMENT. It's as simple as that. The only thing you can do is to take coersion out of the equation.

The fact that in times where the state grows larger and more aggressive by the day, you so-called "libertarians" of the "social justice" sort are seriously whining about things that mostly the state has been responsible for in the first place but are pestering other libertarians with, says enough about your true aim, which is not liberty, but egalitarianism. Equality of outcome, one way or another.

The ironic thing is, it is the "social warrior" libertarian that is meeting his end. Nobody cares. If people want political correctness and victimhood games based on groups, all they have to do is vote Democrat.

P.S. Slavery is a system of servitude for the benefit of others. It doesn't matter if it is comparable in degrees to other forms of slavery. It doesn't change the fact that to the degree that you are working involuntarily for the benefit of others, such as in the case of taxation, you are a slave.
If you don't pay, you get warned. If you still don't pay, you go to court. Still don't pay, they confiscate your property. Resist, and you're arrested and put into a cage. Resist some more, and they put a bullet in you.
The only thing separating one from the other types of slavery is the swiftness of obedience and the amount of propaganda and indoctrination to make modern slavery seem honorable.
The fact that left wing "libertarians" need to be explained this again, is simply because they are in social warrior mode where they think in group identifiers (one is black, the other "privileged" white male, so we don't have to give a shit about the latter).

P.P.S. For a real libertarian there is no such thing as "women's rights", or "minority rights" or "LGBT rights". These are rights accorded to specific groups and are not libertarian. There can be only individual rights. They apply to everyone equally. To argue for the former is to argue not for equal rights but special rights, and you need to enforce those.

If a non-aggression society were to be achieved and pretty much everyone voluntarily chose to work in co-ops, localize food production, embrace homosexuality, etc. do you really think the Mises crowd would decide freedom had failed and call for a return to statism? That doesn't seem likely to me at all.

And I am therefore uncomfortable agreeing with the claim that "They favor [libertarianism] because it gives local patriarchs and lords of manors a free hand to dominate those under their thumbs, without a nasty state stepping in to interfere."

On the flip side, if a non-aggression society were achieved and pretty much everyone voluntarily agreed to live in a society with wage-labor, hierarchical relationships (sans coercion, of course), and a renewed interest in protecting "the family" from alternative lifestyles (again, through non-coercive means), would you decide that freedom had failed and call for a return to statism? That doesn't seem right to me either. Do let me know if I'm wrong.

It seems to me that the Mises crowd and the Left-Libertarians just have different opinions about how people will want to organize if they were free to do so without interference from the state.

There's nothing wrong with aggression per se, many late modern states actually take non aggression to their conclusions. The reason that you have wars and institutional forms of violence has nothing to do with na principles failing as much as it is tied to consequences of actually practiced sovereignty.

Non domination is a different value system all together. You can be for aggression contextually and not make it a principle. Domination represents lingering affects and reifications of past aggressions. That should be the principle not aggression.

"I’m sick of trying to challenge the perception of libertarianism as the movement of entitled 20-something middle-class white males who think “big business is the last oppressed minority,” and the world is going to hell in a hand-basket because of women and racial minorities — and then going to Mises.org, Lew Rockwell, Cato and Reason and seeing a bottomless cesspool of people saying that very thing."

That you write this exposes you as either utterly ignorant, too lazy to research those you criticize, or a liar. Anyone with just scant familiarity with Mises.org and Lew Rockwell can't help but come across ubiquitous articles condemning the big corporate interests in bed with government. Saying they consider big business the "last oppressed minority" is a Ayn Randian notion but certainly not a view Mises.org and Rockwell sympathize with.

And by the way, what's with your hit and run attack on Molyneux. You might at least offer a specific criticism to justify your reference to his "aufulness".

We seem to have a wonderful ongoing red scare going among the middle class wankers attracted to libertarianism. "Collectivist" is the new snarl word for the clowns who think things and ideas are more important than people. These clowns really need to out themselves as neo-feudalists and STFU.

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I’m clearly months late to the conversation, but I suppose I’ll add to the fire. Carson, you have plenty of incredible ideas, and the essays you write and the multitudes you share have helped define and shape my leanings toward anti-caplitalist market anarchism. However, I’m afraid you’re terribly in the wrong on the issue of Gamergate.

I’ve been watching the glorious shitstorm that is Gamergate since its earliest developments in the August of 2014, as well as its earlier grumblings that would boil up from time to time in the years before that. The ordeal began before those “gamers are dead” articles, and began with concerns of obvious collusion between journalist and devloper cliques concentrated in San Francisco. As soon as people began to call collusionists out, actual censorship began. Entire threads and comment sections were deleted from sites such as reddit to news forums. Journalists that spoke out had their reputations and careers threatened. Even the anarchic imageboards of 4chan saw heavy bans and censorship, which led to mass migrations to other boards such as 8chan.

The portrayal of the anti-Gamergate collusionists as liberating the game industry is a sick joke. Ironically, when you take a look at the big players, many are “mostly white male 20- or 30-somethings, disproportionately from the tech industry or other white collar jobs” within San Francisco. If you took a look at the actual demographics of both sides, you would quickly find more diversity on the Gamergate side. The #notyourshield side movement was a push of minority gamer groups against the predominantly white and occasionally Jewish collusionists in San Francisco that used them as an excuse to push their own personal progressive agendas (and personal products of course). As someone stated earlier, even Anita is a puppet of Josh McIntosh, a statist who writes her scripts. His opinions and musings are so hilariously asinine that his best/worst quotes are collected on their own website: http://thefullmcintosh.com/

I have a serious amount of respect for you, Carson. However, I’m disappointed that you managed to miss the mark so poorly on this issue. Your ability to be led astray in this way forces me to question your understanding of other contemporary matters. No matter, I believe you have a brilliant mind with great ideas. I continue to look forward to your future writings. Have a wonderful day.